When trade customers order products from a manufacturer or a distributor of the manufacturer's goods, historically a purchase order has been prepared and mailed, faxed or sent electronically via electronic data interchange (EDI) to the manufacturer or the distributor. If the trade customer is in a hurry, then the purchase order may be telephoned directly to a sales representative of the manufacturer or distributor. For large quantities of goods, the telephone call would not suffice in general, so the typical procedure is to use a written purchase order.
When large quantities of goods are ordered so that they may essentially require an entire trailer load for delivery, the purchaser or “buyer” may have several options, and perhaps could order several different products from a particular distributor or manufacturer to create the “truckload” of goods. However, the purchaser/buyer may not be aware of the normal shipping requirements for a truckload of goods, and may attempt to instigate an order that is not a “quality order,” which means that there is not a true truckload of goods since the trailer would not be adequately filled, or that the quantity exceeded the capacity for a single trailer. The purchaser/buyer would not necessarily be aware of these problems at the time.
When this occurs, historically a sales representative for the manufacturer or distributor would have to place a telephone call to the purchaser/buyer to modify the order to create a “quality order,” which would satisfactorily fill the trailer of the truck, although there may need to be some negotiating back and forth between the buyer and seller (known as “rework”) to determine just what goods would be placed on the next trailer out from the manufacturer's warehouse or distributor, or what additional goods should be added to make up the truckload.
More recently, computer networks, such as the public internet, can be used to communicate purchase transactions between buyers and sellers, and of course, such transactions are quite common for consumers. For large goods transactions involving a “trade customer” as the purchaser/buyer, one does not simply use a credit card number to fill a truck or trailer full of consumer goods that will be purchased by the trade customer from a large manufacturer or distributor. Instead, a more sophisticated system that is customized toward allowing such transactions would be better suited, even though it may still involve the public internet. Such a more suitable system would eliminate or reduce the paperwork required for entering purchase orders, and could also reduce the amount of personal negotiating between a buyer and seller to create a true quality order.